TELUS’s (TU) Sector Perform Rating Reaffirmed at Scotiabank

Scotiabank restated their sector perform rating on shares of TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) in a research note issued to investors on Monday, Marketbeat.com reports. Scotiabank currently has a $26.00 price target on the Wireless communications provider’s stock, down from their previous price target of $28.00.

Several other brokerages also recently weighed in on TU. BMO Capital Markets cut their target price on TELUS from $27.00 to $26.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, February 12th. StockNews.com raised TELUS from a sell rating to a hold rating in a research note on Monday, March 18th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded TELUS from an overweight rating to a neutral rating in a research note on Thursday, January 4th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of $27.72.

TELUS Trading Up 0.6 %

Shares of NYSE TU opened at $16.01 on Monday. The company has a market cap of $23.62 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 37.22, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.52 and a beta of 0.73. TELUS has a 12-month low of $15.47 and a 12-month high of $21.34. The company has a current ratio of 0.67, a quick ratio of 0.62 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.35. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $17.40 and its 200 day simple moving average is $17.36.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Friday, February 9th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.18 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.17 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $5.20 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.24 billion. TELUS had a return on equity of 7.81% and a net margin of 4.18%. The business’s revenue was up 2.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.17 EPS. Equities research analysts expect that TELUS will post 0.78 EPS for the current year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, April 1st. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 11th will be given a dividend of $0.2793 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 8th. This is a boost from TELUS’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.27. This represents a $1.12 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.98%. TELUS’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 258.14%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On TELUS

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of TU. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of TELUS by 57.3% in the 4th quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 17,049 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $303,000 after acquiring an additional 6,211 shares during the last quarter. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. acquired a new position in shares of TELUS in the 4th quarter worth $188,000. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of TELUS by 4.8% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 22,834,015 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $406,217,000 after acquiring an additional 1,044,988 shares during the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of TELUS by 81.4% in the 4th quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 3,798,166 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $67,569,000 after acquiring an additional 1,704,788 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Virtu Financial LLC acquired a new position in shares of TELUS in the 4th quarter worth $376,000. 49.40% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

TELUS Company Profile

TELUS Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides a range of telecommunications and information technology products and services in Canada. It operates through Technology Solutions and Digitally-Led Customer Experiences segments. The Technology Solutions segment offers a range of telecommunications products and services; network services; healthcare services; mobile technologies equipment; data services, such as internet protocol; television; hosting, managed information technology, and cloud-based services; software, data management, and data analytics-driven smart food-chain and consumer goods technologies; home and business security; healthcare software and technology solutions; and voice and other telecommunications services, as well as mobile and fixed voice and data telecommunications services and products.